The Tigress of Mysore

Follow Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Hervey through the 19th century as he takes command of the Sixth Light Dragoons, battles to crush the rebellion, and tries to safeguard his country's interests whilst leaving the brutal war as unscathed as possible. With cuts in the army and with his battalion down to a single squadron, can Hervey remain an impartial spectator when the stakes have never been higher?

Set against the evocative backdrop of India in the first half of the 19th century, this novel marks the welcome return of Matthew Hervey and the 6th Light Dragons in their fourteenth adventure in this bestselling series.

A professional solder for thirty-five years, Allan Mallinson began writing while still serving. 
His first book was a history of four regiments of British light dragoons, one of which he commanded. His debut novel was the bestselling A Close Run Thing, the first in an acclaimed series chronicling the life of a fictitious cavalry officer before and after Waterloo (The Tigress of Mysore is the fourteenth in the series). His The Making of the British Army was shortlisted for a number of prizes, while 1914: Fight the Good Fight won the British Army’s ‘Book of the Year’ Award. Its sequel, Too Important for the Generals, is a provocative look at leadership during the Great War, while Fight to the Finish is a comprehensive history of the First World War, month by month. 
Allan Mallinson reviews for the Spectator and the TLS and also writes for The Times. He lives on Salisbury Plain.

'Matthew Hervey is as splendid a hero as ever sprang from an author's pen' The Times 
 
Following the 6th Light Dragoons' successful campaign in the state of Coorg and the deposition of its deranged Rajah, Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Hervey is looking forward to a few months' respite for his regiment, for himself and his family. Indeed, with his reputation restored, he's rarely felt so content. Alas, such tranquillity is not to last. 
 
 India's governor-general believes Hervey is just the man to lead a force against the Thuggee and Dacoity gangs whose increasingly vicious attacks threaten not only the stability of a number of friendly princely states but also, of course, the East India Company's interests in the sub-continent. 
 
 And so Hervey reluctantly leads the Sixth into the field once more. It's a mission that will prove infinitely more complex, brutal and bloody than anyone predicted. For Hervey has taken the first steps on the path towards the conflagration history calls the Indian Mutiny . . . 
 
'Mallinson's series of early 19th-century military adventures are even better than Patrick O'Brian's naval equivalent . . . Faithful period detail. Rattling pace. Loveable characters' A. N. Wilson 
 
'Thrilling . . . richly engaging, old-fashioned storytelling' Daily Mail

The First World War - Month by Month

Fight to the Finish

Based on Allan Mallinson's highly-praised series in The Times that chronicled the progress of the First World War month by month, Fight to the Finish is a unique and definitive single-volume portrait of 'The War to end War'.

‘Mallinson . . . combines the authority of a soldier-turned-military historian with the imaginative touch of the historical novelist.’ Lawrence James, THE TIMES 
 
We remember months, because months have names, because they are linked to the seasons, and because they have their own character. Looking at the First World War month by month reveals its complexity while preserving a sense of time. 
 
From the opening shots to the signing of the armistice, the First World War lasted almost 52 months. It was fought on land, sea and in the air. It became industrial, and unrestricted: poison gas, aerial bombing of cities, and the sinking without warning of merchantmen and passenger ships by submarines. 
 
Casualties, military and civilian, probably exceeded 40 million. Four empires collapsed during the course of the war – the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman. 
 
The First World War is almost impossible to comprehend. Day-by-day narratives can be dizzying for the reader wanting to make sense of the conflict as a whole. Freer-flowing accounts, while helping to understand the broader trends and factors, can give less of a sense of the human dimension of time. The month is a more digestible gauge. 
 
Based on the Allan Mallinson’s monthly commentaries in The Times throughout the centenary, Fight to the Finish is a new and original portrait of “The War to End War.”

Excellent . . . [Mallinson] has carried off a seemingly impossible task and rather than dismissing this as yet another title on the conflict it should be considered the primer for anyone new to the era. Thoroughly enjoyable, hugely informative and very easy to read, this comes highly recommended.

Notable for its clarity, and anyone requiring a digestible narrative summary of the fighting . . . would be advised to start here.

PROFESSOR JOHN ROHL, on Allan Mallinson's Great War trilogy

I could not believe that [there was] anything new to say . . . but how wrong I was!

(The Matthew Hervey Adventures: 13): a high-octane and fast-paced military action adventure guaranteed to have you gripped!

The Passage to India

Marking Allan Mallinson's eagerly-awaited return to fiction, in the thirteenth thrilling adventure featuring Matthew Hervey of the 6th Light Dragoons, Hervey and his regiment are dispatched to India in order to suppress a bloody uprising...

From THE Sunday Times bestselling author Allan Mallinson, a riveting read with the perfect combination of hero, history and adventure - perfect for fans of Patrick O'Brian and Bernard Cornwell. 
 
'A very astounding and enjoyable military read' -- ***** Reader review 
'Excellent - full of excitement, adventure and history' -- ***** Reader review 
'Outstanding' -- ***** Reader review 
'Magnificent!' -- ***** Reader review 
'Allan Mallinson is a truly gifted storyteller..."- ***** Reader review 
********************************************************************************* 
1831: riots and rebellions are widespread . . . 
 
In England, the new government is facing protests against the attempts of the Tory-dominated House of Lords to thwart the passing of the Reform Bill. In India, relations are strained between the presidency of Madras and some of the neighbouring princely states. 
 
Having taken command of the action in Bristol to restore order after one of the bloodiest and most destructive riots in the nation's history, Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Hervey is out of favour with the new government. But then his old friend, Sir Eyre Somervile, offers him a lifeline... 
 
Somervile has persuaded the Court of Directors of the East India Company to approve an increase in the Madras military establishment. Hervey and the 6th Light Dragoons are sent to the princely state of Coorg. The Rajah is in revolt against the East India Company's terms and Hervey's regiment is called upon to crush the rebellion. 
 
With the stakes raised by an unexpected visitation from his past, for Hervey the question is whether he and his men will get out of this brutal war unscathed?

Mallinson's series of early 19th-century military adventures are even better than Patrick O'Brian's naval equivalent. In the latest, The Passage to India we find our hero...called back to India. Faithful period detail. Rattling pace. Loveable characters.

Losing and Winning the First World War

Too Important for the Generals

Published as the world marks the centenary of one of the most infamous battles of the First World War, the Somme, this powerfully-argued and polemical new history of the war by one of Britain's most respected military historians explores how the war was fought, how near we came to losing it - and why winning proved so costly and why the Allied generals and politicians failed to find a less bloody strategy for victory.

Allan Mallinson puts his case compellingly in a stimulating overview of the war.  He combines the authority of a soldier-turned-military historian with the imaginative touch of the historical novelist.

Very readable . . . excellently researched . . .a must for anyone interested in military history and the interface of political and military power; the fact that, 100 years on, historians are still in such disagreement demonstrates just how important and absorbing the debate remains.

Provocative . . . succinctly summarises the big battles of the conflict, before discussing the commanders' shortcomings, which is his theme.'

Mallinson . . . argues persuasively that those charged with sending men into battle should have given a better account of themselves. As the nation commemorates one of the darkest chapters in British Army history, it is hard to disagree.

Refreshingly clear . . . this is a well-written, at times provocative, and concise overview of why the war was conducted as it was, and why it probably was too important to be left to the generals.

His bracing polemic . . . vivid, concise . . . he has a keen eye for telling statistics . . . he also sprinkles his grim narrative with colourful eye-witness accounts . . . among the glut of books published to mark the Great War's centenary, this deserves high marks for passion and clarity.

Engaging writing and excellent presentation . . . a tricky yet well-crafted analysis, which adds to the revisionist school of thought with some edgy arguments, this is sure to get you thinking.

An insightful study of generalship on both sides.

‘War is too important to be left to the generals’ snapped future French prime minister Georges Clemenceau on learning of yet another bloody and futile offensive on the Western Front. 
One of the great questions in the ongoing discussions and debate about the First World War is why did winning take so long and exact so appalling a human cost? After all this was a fight that, we were told, would be over by Christmas. 
Now, in his major new history, Allan Mallinson, former professional soldier and author of the acclaimed 1914: Fight the Good Fight, provides answers that are disturbing as well as controversial, and have a contemporary resonance. He disputes the growing consensus among historians that British generals were not to blame for the losses and setbacks in the ‘war to end all wars’ – that, given the magnitude of their task, they did as well anyone could have. He takes issue with the popular view that the ‘amateur’ opinions on strategy of politicians such as Lloyd George and, especially, Winston Churchill, prolonged the war and increased the death toll. On the contrary, he argues, even before the war began Churchill had a far more realistic, intelligent and humane grasp of strategy than any of the admirals or generals, while very few senior officers – including Sir Douglas Haig – were up to the intellectual challenge of waging war on this scale. And he repudiates the received notion that Churchill’s stature as a wartime prime minister after 1940 owes much to the lessons he learned from his First World War ‘mistakes’ – notably the Dardanelles campaign – maintaining that in fact Churchill’s achievement in the Second World War owes much to the thwarting of his better strategic judgement by the ‘professionals’ in the First – and his determination that this would not be repeated. 
 
Mallinson argues that from day one of the war Britain was wrong-footed by absurdly faulty French military doctrine and paid, as a result, an unnecessarily high price in casualties. He shows that Lloyd George understood only too well the catastrophically dysfunctional condition of military policy-making and struggled against the weight of military opposition to fix it. And he asserts that both the British and the French failed to appreciate what the Americans’ contribution to victory could be – and, after the war, to acknowledge fully what it had actually been.

(The Matthew Hervey Adventures: 12): immerse yourself in this brilliantly crafted military masterpiece

Words of Command

Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Hervey returns to take command of the 6th Light Dragoons in his 12th enthralling adventure.

Once again, THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR Allan Mallinson captivates readers with an eminently readable piece of historical fiction. If you're a fan of Patrick O'Brian, Bernard Cornwell and CS Forester, you'll love this. 
 
'The Matthew Hervey books have a way of getting under your skin...reveals a man who is very much of his time -and one to have beside you when riding into action.' - DAILY MAIL 
'One for the fans, who will not be disappointed by Mallinson's winning combination of scrupulous research and derring-do...with the French in front and the Russians behind, Hervey's your man.' - THE TIMES 
'Leaves the reader slavering for the next instalment.' -- ***** Reader review 
'This is historical fiction at its very best.' -- ***** Reader review 
'Such a pleasure to read a well written, well edited, well researched, readable piece of historical fiction.' -- ***** Reader review 
 
****************************************************************** 
 
January 1830, and one of the hardest winters in memory... 
 
The prime minister, the Iron Duke, is resisting growing calls for parliamentary reform, provoking scenes of violent unrest in the countryside. 
 
Against this inflammable backdrop Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Hervey, recently returned from an assignment in the Balkans, takes command of his regiment, the 6th Light Dragoons. His fears that things might be a little dull are quickly dispelled by the everyday business of vexatious officers, NCOs promotions and incendiarists on the doorstep of the King himself. 
 
But it's when the Sixth are sent to Brussels for the fifteenth anniversary celebrations of the battle of Waterloo and find themselves caught up in the Belgian uprising against Dutch rule that the excitement really starts. 
 
Will Hervey be able to keep out of the fighting - a war that would lead, nearly a century later, to Britain's involvement in an altogether different war - while safeguarding his country's interests? Not likely!

The Matthew Hervey books have a way of getting under your skin...reveals a man who is very much of his time -and one to have beside you when riding into action.

One for the fans, who will not be disappointed by Mallinson's winning combination of scrupulous research and derring-do...with the French in front and the Russians behind, Hervey's your man.

Britain, the Army and the Coming of the First World War

1914: Fight the Good Fight

Now in paperback, this fascinating and revelatory new history of the origins of the First World War, of those first few crucial weeks of fighting, and of how Britain and its army fared has won the 2014 British Army Military Book of the Year.

Mallinson uncovers a litany of rivalry and miscalculation. With the Great War's centenary commemorations on the horizon, he has produced a must-read for anyone who wants to know how Britain practically stumbled into one of the bloodiest conflicts in history.

Formidable and page-turning . . . Mallinson's clinical examination of the 'what ifs' is as compelling as his account of the death of a small but professional army, sacrificed to the incuriosity of our politicians and disinclination of military leaders to countenance any challenge to what they believed were best laid plans.

Compelling and rigorously researched...paints a vivid picture. . . this is not dry military history. He tells the story through many eyes of those on the frontline, from general to Tommy. It's recounted through regimental histories and underpinned with his deep understanding of tactics . . . offers unique insights on the planning, 'politicking' and fighting.

In the deluge of books to mark the centenary of the start of the Great War, it is refreshing to find one written by a former soldier who is also an accomplished military historian . . . a vivid picture . . . with his soldier's grasp of tactics and strategy, Mallinson describes with clarity and authority the opening weeks of the war.

Mallinson writes with an exciting pen and a cool head and he understands war.

Prof. Michael Clarke, Director General of the Royal United Services Institute

This is one of the few new books on the war to be written by a former soldier, and it benefits greatly from the author's tactical knowledge, strategic expertise and understanding of how an army really functions.

‘No part of the Great War compares in interest with its opening’, wrote Churchill. ‘The measured, silent drawing together of gigantic forces, the uncertainty of their movements and positions, the number of unknown and unknowable facts made the first collision a drama never surpassed…in fact the War was decided in the first twenty days of fighting, and all that happened afterwards consisted in battles which, however formidable and devastating, were but desperate and vain appeals against the decision of fate.’ 
 
On of Britain's foremost military historians and defence experts tackles the origins - and the opening first few weeks of fighting - of what would become known as 'the war to end all wars'. Intensely researched and convincingly argued, Allan Mallinson explores and explains the grand strategic shift that occurred in the century before the war, the British Army’s regeneration after its drubbings in its fight against the Boer in South Africa, its almost calamitous experience of the first twenty days’ fighting in Flanders to the point at which the British Expeditionary Force - the 'Old Contemptibles' - took up the spade in the middle of September 1914: for it was then that the war changed from one of rapid and brutal movement into the more familiar vision of trench warfare on Western Front. In this vivid, compelling new history, Malliinson brings his experience as a professional soldier to bear on the circumstances, events, actions and individuals and speculates – tantalizingly – on what might have been...

Allan Mallinson

His prose is light and engaging; this is a detailed factual account but it is as pleasurable and easy to read as any well written novel. The maps are excellent, the pace is a brisk canter . . . there are some utterly joyfully arid asides and footnotes that made me laugh aloud . . . this book is simply superb. Buy it. Read it.

It is such a relief to read something by a professional who really knows his stuff.

Six Campaigns from Hastings to Helmand

One of our most distinguished military historians tells the story of six defining battles . . . 
 
Every battle is different. Each takes place in a different context - the war, the campaign, the weapons. However, battles across the centuries, whether fought with sticks and stones or advanced technology, have much in common. Fighting is, after all, an intensely human affair; human nature doesn't change. So why were battles fought as they were? What gave them their shape? Why did they go as they did: victory for one side, defeat for the other? 
 
In exploring six significant feats of arms - the war and campaign in which they each occurred, and the factors that determined their precise form and course - The Shape of Battle answers these fundamental questions about the waging of war. 
 
Hastings (1066) - everyone knows the date, but not, perhaps, the remarkable strategic background. 
Towton (1461) - the bloodiest battle to be fought on English soil. 
Waterloo (1815) - more written about in English than any other but rarely in its true context as the culminating battle in the longest war in 'modern' times. 
D-Day (1944) - a battle within a larger operation ('Overlord'), and the longest-planned and most complex offensive battle in history. 
Imjin River (1951) - this little known battle of the Korean War was the British Army's last large-scale defensive battle. 
Operation Panther's Claw (2009) - a battle that has yet to receive the official distinction of being one: an offensive conducted over six weeks with all the trappings of 21st-century warfare yet whose shape and face at times resembled the Middle Ages. 
 
 The Shape of Battle is not a polemic, it doesn't try to argue a case. It lets the narratives - the battles - speak for themselves.

Allan Mallinson

Praise for The Shape of Battle

There is no finer military historian.

His prose is light and engaging; this is a detailed factual account but it is as pleasurable and easy to read as any well written novel. The maps are excellent, the pace is a brisk canter . . . there are some utterl ...

Mallinson writes with an exciting pen and a cool head and he understands war.

There is no finer military historian.

His prose is light and engaging; this is a detailed factual account but it is as pleasurable and easy to read as any well written novel. The maps are excellent, the pace is a brisk canter . . . there are some utterl ...

Mallinson writes with an exciting pen and a cool head and he understands war.

There is no finer military historian.

His prose is light and engaging; this is a detailed factual account but it is as pleasurable and easy to read as any well written novel. The maps are excellent, the pace is a brisk canter . . . there are some utterl ...

Mallinson writes with an exciting pen and a cool head and he understands war.

Books by Allan Mallinson

Series by Allan Mallinson

Matthew Hervey

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